Lukashenko: Ukraine's leaders are the reason for everything going on over there

The country's leadership should be blamed for events in Ukraine. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement as he talked to personnel of the Minsk Center of Surgery, Transplantology and Hematology on 25 February, BelTA has learned.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “As for events unfolding in our dear Ukraine… Well, the nation elected such leaders. Ukraine's leaders are the reason for everything going on over there.”

The president noted that back in the USSR times Ukraine followed a policy that differed from those of other Soviet countries. Aleksandr Lukashenko said he saw it when he served in the border service. “I had to travel from the Baltic states across the entire western Ukraine, there was a Kiev center. And back then I already saw this nationalism, which is irreconcilable with Belarusians. When I entered the KGB office in Lvov, I asked the committee chairman: ‘It is a huge building. More than 1,000 people work here. Governments of some countries employ fewer people.' He told me it was due to rampant nationalism in Lvov Oblast, in western Ukraine, nationalism of a kind Belarusians simply could not comprehend. It was the bad foundation that sprouted later. And politicians did the rest,” the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted he had worked with several Ukrainian presidents and they had never tried to work for the benefit of the people. “It happened in Belarus in the 1990s, too. Do you remember the times of [Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav] Shushkevich? education was mangled, Russians were encouraged to leave the country. Although I often made relevant inquiries as a member of the parliament,” he reminded. “Why am I talking about it? Because the prohibition for the people in Ukraine to speak the language they want to speak is one of the reasons of the conflict. We chose a different path: you are welcome to speak any language. Don't forget the Belarusian language. It is what makes us different from other countries.”